Readers who recall that four years ago a new US President seemed eager to defuse the West’s quarrel with Iran over its nuclear activities may wonder why we are all still waiting for white smoke. I am not sure I know the answer, but I have a hunch it has something to [...]

After three decades of frosty relations, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a historic visit to Cairo on 5 February 2012, making him the only post-revolutionary Iranian leader to set foot in the Arab heartland. His trip marked the culmination of at least three years of gradual warming up [...]

Despite an agreement between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) to resume long-delayed talks about Tehran’s nuclear programme in Kazakhstan at the end of this month, few observers here believe that any breakthrough is in the offing.

A key foreign policy consequence of President Barak Obama’s reelection is the growing possibility of face-to-face talks between the United States. and Iran. Both the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi have expressed, albeit conditionally, their respective governments’ openness [...]

The Guardian is reporting that a ”reformulated” proposal including “limited sanctions relief” will be launched by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (p5+1) after the US presidential election.

Recently, the Canadian government severed ties with Iran, citing threats to its diplomats in Tehran. While Israel has hailed the decision as a “clarion call to action”, few Canadian diplomats are convinced.

It is not too often that I find myself nodding in agreement with the rhetoric [...]

Turkish-Iranian relations have been rocky since the deepening of the Syrian imbroglio. But the latest row suggests a new low. In no uncertain terms both the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and foreign minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, expressed displeasure with recent harsh statements coming out of Tehran regarding Turkish culpability in [...]